Entertainment

Black Panther cast members reveal new details about film

Black Panther stole the show Saturday night at Marvel Studios' Comic-Con presentation, outshining the Ant-Man, Thor and even the ultimate Avengers team-up, Infinity War.

Lupita Nyong'o, Chadwick Boseman, director Ryan Coogler among those on panel discussing anticipated Marvel pic

Chadwick Boseman, from left, Lupita Nyong'o, and Michael B. Jordan attend the Marvel panel at Comic-Con International Saturday in San Diego, Calif. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/The Associated Press)

Black Panther stole the show Saturday night at Marvel Studios' Comic-Con presentation, outshining the Ant-Man, Thor and even the ultimate Avengers team-up, Infinity War.

Fans went wild for the exclusive sneak peek at the upcoming superhero pic, featuring star Chadwick Boseman T'Challa intercepting a sketchy vibranium trade between Andy Serkis' Klaw and Martin Freeman's Everett. Set in an elegant, Japanese-inspired casino, the deal goes haywire and T'Challa and his security detail (Lupita Nyong'o and Danai Gurira) jump to action in their evening gowns to retrieve the precious goods.

Deafening cheers

The clip was followed by the trailer for the film from Creed director Ryan Coogler and the 6,500 people in the audience erupted into deafening cheers at the sight of T'Challa morphing into the Black Panther suit.

The film finds T'Challa returning to his home of Wakanda after the death of his father, the king.

"He's still mourning his father's death. It's a transition period that gets interrupted, and he's struggling with the type of king he wants to be," said Boseman.

Coogler, Boseman, Nyong'o, Gurira, Serkis and more of the cast were on hand in San Diego to talk about the film, out Feb, 16, 2019.

Cast members Danai Gurira, from left, Letitia Wright and Forest Whitaker discuss the upcoming Black Panther film with fans. (Richard Shotwell/Invision/The Associated Press)

Characters revealed

Nyong'o described her character as a spy who goes undercover to report back to Wakanda about what is going on in the rest of the world.

"Wakanda is an isolated nation," Nyongo said. "The world does not need to know what's going on in Wakanda."

Coogler said he'd always had a fondness for comic books, and found Black Panther at a pivotal moment.

"I grew up as black kid in the Bay Area and grew up with comic books and it didn't matter what colour the superheroes were. I read X-Men, I read Spider-Man," Coogler said. Then he started looking for a character that looked like him and he stumbled on Black Panther.

Marvel Studios also teased its third Thor film, Thor: Ragnarok," which has quite a different and more irreverent tone from previous instalments, and hits theatres in November.